USS Artisan (ABSD-1), later redesignated as (AFDB-1), was a ten-section, non-self-propelled, large auxiliary floating drydock of the United States Navy. The only U.S. warship with this name, Artisan was constructed in sections during 1942 and 1943 by the Everett-Pacific Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, in Everett, Washington; the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, in Eureka, California; the Pollock-Stockton Shipbuilding Company, in Stockton, California; and the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, in Morgan City, Louisiana. This ship was commissioned at Everett, Washington, on 10 May 1943, Captain Andrew R. Mack in command. With all ten sections joined, she was 927 feet long, 28 feet tall (keel to welldeck), and with an inside clear width of 133 feet 7 inches. Each section was 3,850 tons and 93 feet long, with a 165-foot beam, a 75-foot molded depth, and 10,000 tons of lifting capacity. Each had four ballast compartments. Under tow, the two side walls were folded down to reduce wind resistance and lower the center of gravity. ABSD-1 had a traveling crane with an 85-foot radius and 15-ton capacity. The crane had six capstans for pulling, each rated at at , four of which were reversible. She was generally deployed with two or more support barges. War service In 1943, the new drydock was towed to the southwestern Pacific in two convoys. The pair of sections constructed on the Gulf Coast left Morgan City, Louisiana, on 14 July 1943. The eight sections built in Washington and California were towed to San Francisco, California, before putting to sea on 28 August 1943. The first two sections arrived at Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides on 24 September; the West Coast sections on 2 October. Later that month, the crew began to assemble the ship. Thirteen sailors drowned on 2 November when one of its sections sank. By the end of 1943, she was a working drydock of eight sections repairing a variety of Navy ships at Naval Advance Base Espiritu Santo. In April 1944, ABSD-1 became a full ten-section drydock when her remaining section was combined with another from ABSD-2 and was joined to the eight already functioning. She served in the New Hebrides until mid-April 1945, when she received orders to move forward to the big base, Leyte-Samar Naval Base, at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. ABSD-1 was disassembled for towing by the beginning of June and, on 30 June, the first